Merce Cunningham and the Modernizing of Modern Dance is a complete study of the life and work of this seminal choreographer/dancer. More than just a biography, Copeland explores Cunningham's life story against a backdrop of an entire century of developments in American art. Copeland traces his own experience of Cunningham's dances-from the turbulent late '60s through the experimental works of the '80s and '90s-showing how Cunningham moved dance away from the highly emotional, subjective work of Martha Graham to a return to a new kind of classicism. This book places Cunningham in the forefront of an artistic revolution, a revolution that has its parallels in music (John Cage, and the minimalist composers who followed him), painting (Jaspar Johns, Robert Rauschenberg), theater (the "happenings" of the '60s), and dance itself (the Judson School of dancers). An iconclastic and highly readable analysis, this book will be enjoyed by all those interested in the development of the American arts in the 20th century.
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Editorial Reviews
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Copeland's book about the sixty-year career of Merce Cunningham is also a brilliant sixty-year history of theater, dance, art, music and intellectual movements in America. . . ..
–Sally Sommer, Professor of American Dance Studies at Florida State University.
Examines the trajectory of Merce The Choreographer and places him just where I think he belongs--as a global artist of the twentieth century moving in all directions into the twenty-first..
–Valda Setterfield, Member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, 1964-1974
Copeland's book will bring joy to Cunningham partisans.
–Allan Ulrich, Dance Magazine
–Sally Sommer, Professor of American Dance Studies at Florida State University.
Examines the trajectory of Merce The Choreographer and places him just where I think he belongs--as a global artist of the twentieth century moving in all directions into the twenty-first..
–Valda Setterfield, Member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, 1964-1974
Copeland's book will bring joy to Cunningham partisans.
–Allan Ulrich, Dance Magazine
About the Author
Roger Copeland is Professor of Theater and Dance at Oberlin College. He is coeditor of the widely used anthology What is Dance? His essays about dance, theater, and film have appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Village Voice, and many other publications including The Encyclopedia of Dance and Ballet.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Engaging but repetitive,
By
This review is from: Merce Cunningham: The Modernizing of Modern Dance (Paperback)
As a highly unschooled Cunningham fan -- this is the first dance book I've ever read -- I found Copeland's book engaging in its scope, contextualizing Cunningham's choreography in relation to the leading cultural and aesthetic movements of the last half century. Copeland has essentially one thesis, stated fairly cleanly in the introduction. I would highly recommend the introduction. Unfortunately the rest of the book can be tedious and dogmatic as Copeland attempts to bolster his arguments through a strategy of repetition and exhaustion. Every movement and idea of the late 20th century seems to be a nail for Copeland's rhetorical hammer, and while I found the tie-ins and tidbits of history interesting enough to finish the book, I found the tone and structure of the book to be artificially argumentative and quite lacking in the openness and nuance that Copland praises Cunningham for.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb tour through the 20th century -- and beyond,
By A Customer
This review is from: Merce Cunningham: The Modernizing of Modern Dance (Paperback)
What an extraordinary book! Copeland does not just tell the story of one figure, even though Cunningham is a great figure central to just about every artistic movement of the last 70 years. Copeland also relates in lucid prose how each of those movements arose, what made it tick, and how its legacy affects us today. After the "culture wars" of the 1990s, there were very few individuals left standing who could both appreciate and criticize the twists and turns of modernism and post-modernism. Copeland is among this saving remnant. If you are looking for a strong-minded, witty, engaging, eloquent Virgil to guide you through the Inferno and Purgatory of art since the 1930s, look no further. Copeland's your man.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
One would have thought the 1960s an ideal (perhaps the ideal) time for a first encounter with the primitive mysteries of Martha Graham. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
perceptual freedom, vernacular glance, contemporary classicism, fatal abstraction, modern dance choreographers, ballet vocabulary, primitive mysteries, collage aesthetic, first choreographer, scrim curtain, chance methods, descriptive criticism, sound scores, formalist art, chance operations, modernist primitivism, movement motifs, visual obstacles, unshakable determination, movement vocabulary, victim art, total theater, abstract expressionism, thinking body, minimal art Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, New York, John Cage, Walkaround Time, Carolyn Brown, Moira Roth, Nam June Paik, Jackson Pollock, Rethinking the Thinking Body, Andy Warhol, Clement Greenberg, David Tudor, The Sound of Perceptual Freedom, Ballets Russes, Doris Humphrey, Cunningham Dance Foundation, Field Dances, Gordon Mumma, Hand-Drawn Spaces, Isadora Duncan, Christian Wolff, Harold Rosenberg, Jung Man, Portrait of the Artist New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
One would have thought the 1960s an ideal (perhaps the ideal) time for a first encounter with the primitive mysteries of Martha Graham. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
perceptual freedom, vernacular glance, contemporary classicism, fatal abstraction, modern dance choreographers, ballet vocabulary, primitive mysteries, collage aesthetic, first choreographer, scrim curtain, chance methods, descriptive criticism, sound scores, formalist art, chance operations, modernist primitivism, movement motifs, visual obstacles, unshakable determination, movement vocabulary, victim art, total theater, abstract expressionism, thinking body, minimal art Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, New York, John Cage, Walkaround Time, Carolyn Brown, Moira Roth, Nam June Paik, Jackson Pollock, Rethinking the Thinking Body, Andy Warhol, Clement Greenberg, David Tudor, The Sound of Perceptual Freedom, Ballets Russes, Doris Humphrey, Cunningham Dance Foundation, Field Dances, Gordon Mumma, Hand-Drawn Spaces, Isadora Duncan, Christian Wolff, Harold Rosenberg, Jung Man, Portrait of the Artist New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
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22
books
cite this book:
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- Merce Cunningham: Dancing in Space and Time by Richard Kostelanetz on 15 pages
- The Ticket That Exploded (Burroughs, William S.) by William S. Burroughs on 6 pages
- Against Interpretation: And Other Essays by Susan Sontag on page 16, page 26, and Back Matter
- The Dance of Life by Havelock Ellis on page 114, page 123, and Back Matter
- White Negro by Norman Mailer in Front Matter, page 49, and Back Matter
See all 100 books this book cites
- Moving Words: Re-Writing Dance by Gay Morris in Front Matter, and page 287
- The Male Dancer: Bodies, Spectacle and Sexuality by Ramsay Burt on page 36, and Back Matter
- The Routledge Dance Studies Reader by Alexandra Carter in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
- The Routledge Dance Studies Reader by Alexandra Carter in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
- The Male Dancer: Bodies, Spectacle and Sexuality by Ramsay Burt on page 36, and Back Matter
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